A Gilded-Age Town House Gets A Millennial Makeover
The formal side of the parlor of a Park Slope town house is infused with gold hues through a brass chandelier by Lou Blass from the Ad Lib Gallery, Gold Tears by Damien Hirst and vintage bronze-trimmed onyx coffee tables. Marcia Levine of The Workroom fabricated the ombre draperies with linen from Zak + Fox. The 1960s armchairs are Italian. BBI Inc. renovated the parlor and woodwork throughout, including installing the herringbone flooring.
She was a beauty in her day, but more than a century later, even the faithfully restored town house–one of Park Slope’s grandest–wasn’t going to be enough for a millennial couple looking for a modern edge.
But both husband and wife fell in love with the Brooklyn property nonetheless, seeing great possibility despite its outdated layout and architecture.
“There’s something about the sheer width of it, and the size–and the staircase!” the wife says, noting the elliptical stairs that coil through the home’s four levels, illuminated by a large skylight. “We knew it was a gem.”
They enlisted architect David Howell and designer Steffani Aarons of DHD Architecture + Interior Design to open up the all-important parlor floor, smooth out the fussy details, and paint everything white–a striking contrast to the newly black stairs lined in luxe silk velvet. The approach set the tone for drama that extends through the house–especially in the original oval dining room, whose brown wood trim and yellow walls were banished to history.
“It’s very moody and rock ‘n’ roll,” Aarons says. “We were going for dark and smoky–and black iguanas on the wall!”